I'm new here and I love the high voltage projects that have been put into Instructables format. My passion is building Tesla coils and I wanted to share images of the Tesla coils I have completed. I 'm planning to post Instructables for my future Tesla Coils so watch for them here.
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I looked at the transformer and it really isn't suited for Tesla coils. You need a transformer that runs on household 110v and produces 3000 to 15000 volts. I would check with a local neon sign company and see if they have any old neon sign transformers that they would sell you.
Good luck and I hope you build a coil.
Michael
Ok, my friend and I have just finished our tesla coil using a 9kv NST and 6 salt water capacitors but it isn't working. If any of you have any idea why it is not wotking please let me know.
You have made many changes. Without drawing the wiring diagram out for you go to this page deepfriedneon.com/tesla_wiring.html if you have yet to do so and see if what you have as far as wiring matches up. You want to follow the wire size also or as close as possible. If all this is right then your problem is more than likely you capacitors. Even in the worst case scenario most coils that are wired right and have a good capacitor will put out something. take off the top load and see if you get any plasma. Also try bringing a metal object to the secondary lead at the top of the coil using an insulated rod like PVC or plastic. If its resonating at all it should give you a spark. If you still have no output try testing your capacitors just using the transformer and spark gap. Run the spark gap with just the transformer first and take note as to how the spark looks and sounds. Next wire the capacitors in with the gap and transformer and fire it up. The sparks look and sound are totally different when all is working properly.
Give that a try.
im trying to work through a book to figure out how to get a coil with a resonant frequency of around 7. 85hz. It would be interesting to
1, get a coil to resonate at this frequency, and 2, drive it with a modulated signal and see if you can get a second tesla coil to pick up the signal by 1 of 2 ways...
1, just passivley picking it up and amplifying it.
2, On the second tesla coil, putting a loosely coupled inverted signal on the antenna which makes the electric field vectors add together (cause if you blow a ball from a super powerfull vaccume in my direction and i use a vaccume to suck the air around me in, the ball will drift my way)
If they are in resonance i believe that it will make an electrostatic circuit, if you increase the frequency then the air becomes like a dielectric, whos resistance to power flow is reduced as the frequency increases.
this could be seen as a form of quantum tunneling i guess.... i feel there are more classical theory explinations.
anyways, im poor and going through school at the moment, so unless i get a grant, or hit the lottery i wont be able to test these things till some ones allready tested and invented the darn thing so... lol...
anyways i was just wondering what you thought, or have tried with the coil.
energeticforum.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Td--HItuoI
kinda like this?
your coils and experiments are beautifully done, setup , and displayed!
i love your designs!
Second, doing so would make the circuitry heat up, due to increased average current pull.
Third, if hooked to a Tesla coil, a function generator would die.
I've been reading a tesla coil building "guide" and i find it very interesting that these are not used more often for radio broadcast. These oscillators should be incredibly efficient , though its best operation may not be producing photons (EM couplings).
The Tesla coil is also, as you have mentioned, much more efficient at radio transmission when it is not 'breaking out,' or when no streamers are present. This is in itself an issue, since the state in which a Tesla coil does not break out is very hard on its driver circuitry due to the energy in the primary circuit 'ringing' for far too long, since it is unable to transfer quickly to the secondary. If this happens, the secondary will attempt to pick the energy up frm the primary and feed energy back into the primary at certain points, causing very large voltage spikes in your primary circuitry, likely damaging your delicate circuitry, such as transistors and diodes.
In short, while the principle is sound, the practical application is more difficult than it is worth.
Note: Tesla himself thought of the idea of transmitting pictures and music over a Tesla coil's output.
about the ringing for too long.. isnt that a tuning issue? And the two coils should be loosely air coupled to allow for a kind of slip.
as for the switching device i agree.. but it depends on what switching device you use. Tesla used a rotary gap where the electrodes in the drum would periodically be connected by mercury that stayed in the bottom as the electrodes rotated around. As i understand this improved operations...
but anyways... probably more money than its worth....